Dedication
For Poppy: my grandfather, my godfather, and my biggest fan.
I love and miss you with all my heart.
Epigraph
“No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”
—St. Maksymilian Kolbe
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
About the Book
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Auschwitz, 20 April 1945
THREE MONTHS AGO, I escaped the prison that held my body, but I haven’t found freedom from the one that holds my soul. It’s as if I never shed the blue-and-gray-striped uniform or set foot beyond the electrified barbed-wire fences. The liberation I seek requires escape of a different sort, one I can achieve only now that I’ve returned.
A drizzle falls around me, adding an eerie haze to the gray, foggy morning. Not unlike the first day I stood in this exact spot, staring at the dark metal sign beckoning me from the distance.
ARBEIT MACHT FREI.
I remove the letter from my small handbag and read over the words I’ve memorized, then pull the gun out and examine it. A Luger P08, just like the one my father kept as a trophy following the Great War. The one he’d taught me how to use.
I drop the handbag onto the wet ground, straighten my shirtwaist, and tuck the pistol into my skirt pocket. With each footstep against the gravel, the scent of fresh earth mingles with the rain, but I swear I detect traces of decaying corpses and smoke from cigarettes, guns, and the crematoria. Shuddering, I wrap my arms around my waist and take a breath to assure myself that the air is clean.
Once I pass through the gate, I stop. No curses, taunts, or slurs, no cracking whips or thudding clubs, no barking dogs, no tramping jackboots, no orchestra playing German marches.
Auschwitz is abandoned.
When the loud voice in my head deters me, the little whisper reminds me that this is the day I’ve awaited, and if I don’t see it through I may never have another chance. I continue down the empty street, past the kitchen and the camp brothel. Turn by Block 14 and come upon my destination, my hand against my other pocket to feel the rosary beads tucked inside.
The roll-call square. Our meeting place. And he’s already here.
The bastard stands by the wooden shelter booth, and he looks no different than I remember. Hardly taller than I, slight and unimpressive. He’s in his SS uniform, crisp and pressed even in the rain, jackboots shiny despite a few splatters of mud. His pistol hangs at his side. And his beady eyes lock upon me when I halt a few meters away.
“Prisoner 16671,” Fritzsch says. “I prefer you in stripes.”
Despite the many times I’ve been addressed by that sequence, the way he says one-six-six-seven-one steals my voice. I brush my thumb over the tattoo along my forearm, such a sharp contrast to my pale skin, and pass over the five round scars above the tattoo. The simple gesture coaxes my tongue into forming words.
“My name is Maria Florkowska.”
He chuckles. “You still haven’t learned to control that mouth of yours, have you, Polack?”
The endgame has begun. My wits are my king, pain my queen, the gun my rook, and I am the pawn. My pieces are in place on this giant chessboard. White pawn faces black king.
Fritzsch beckons me with a jerk of his head and indicates the small table set up in the middle of the square. I’d recognize the checkered board and its pieces anywhere. Our footsteps against the gravel are the only sound until I prepare to sit behind the white pieces; then his voice stops me.
“Have you forgotten the terms of our arrangement? If you’re going to bore me, I see no need for a final game.”
As he moves to block my path, one hand rests on his pistol, and I take a slow breath. Somehow I feel like the girl surrounded by men in this roll-call square, all eyes on her while she engages in chess games against the man who would lodge a bullet in her skull just as soon as place her in checkmate.
The silence hangs heavy between us until I manage to break it. “What should I do?”
A hum of approval rumbles in his throat; I loathe myself for putting it there. “Compliance serves you far better than impertinence,” he says, and I watch his feet as he steps closer. “Other side.”
He’s taking my white pieces and my first-move advantage as easily as he took everything else from me. But I don’t need an advantage to defeat him.
I move to the opposite side of the board and study the water droplets glistening on the black pieces. Fritzsch will open with the Queen’s Gambit. I know he will, because it’s my favorite opening. He’ll be sure to take that, too.
And he does. Queen’s pawn to D4. The solitary white pawn stands two squares ahead of its row, already seeking control of the center of the board. When my black queen’s pawn meets his in the center, he responds with a second pawn to the left of his first, finishing the opening.
Fritzsch rests his forearms on the table. “Your move, 16671.”
I swallow the Jawohl, Herr Lagerführer rising to my throat. He’s not my camp deputy anymore. I won’t address him as such.
When I stay silent, the corner of his mouth tightens, and the heat of satisfaction courses through my body, mingling with the chill of this dreary morning. As I examine the board, I keep both hands in his view—the pistol remains tucked inside my skirt pocket, heavy as it rests against my lap.
Fritzsch watches while I reach for my next pawn, eyes alight as if he expects me to speak. Something inside urges me to comply, if only to get away from him, from this place, but I can’t, not yet. Not until the time is right. Then I will demand the answers I seek, but if I let the questions consume me now, if I lose focus—
After I make my play, I smooth my damp skirt, giving myself a reason to hide my hands under the table. The trembles can’t start. This game is too important. My hands are steady for now, but the slightest change is all it takes.
Finish the game, Maria.
Chess is my game. It’s always been my game.
And after all this time, this game will end my way.
Chapter 2
Warsaw, 27 May 1941
EVER SINCE MY family a
nd I were confined to Pawiak Prison, one phrase had reverberated in my mind: The Gestapo will come for me.
Huddled in the corner of our cell, I hugged my knees against my chest and brushed my thumb over my split bottom lip. At first I thought maybe the German secret police would decide I wasn’t worth their time. One look at my blond braid and wide eyes, and they’d deem me harmless.
But it was too late for that. They already had proof of what I’d done.
On the single metal bed with its thin mattress, Zofia hugged Mama’s arm. A prisoner had just stumbled past our cell, but my little sister hadn’t released Mama or stopped staring at the bars on the door. The man’s pleas for mercy echoed in my ears, pleas that had earned him kicks and shoves as the guards ushered him away. At last Mama coaxed Zofia into loosening her grip, then wrestled with her golden curls, likely hoping to distract her.
Karol, on the other hand, seemed to have forgotten the scene we’d witnessed. He got up from the filthy floor and hurried to my father at the opposite edge of the cot.
“I want to play with my toy soldiers when we get home, Tata,” he said.
“Will your soldiers defeat the Nazis?”
“They always do,” Karol said with a grin. “Can we go home now?”
“Soon,” Tata replied. “Soon.” But he exchanged a glance with Mama, the same one they’d started giving each other when the Nazis invaded. The one filled with doubt.
I wondered how much they resented me. They didn’t act like it, but they must have—if not for themselves, then for Zofia and Karol. My actions had gotten two innocent children sent to prison. We’d been held only a few days, but my parents’ soft yet emphatic sighs, their futile comforts and encouragements, my sister’s bored complaints and brother’s hungry cries, all reminded me that I was responsible for our misery.
As Karol clambered onto Tata’s lap, a new sound caught my attention. Footsteps.
My parents reached for each other—a small, simple gesture, but they made it as one. Moving at the same time, the same speed, perfectly in sync. Two halves of a whole. Their hands touched for a moment before they looked at me. I wished they hadn’t, because upon seeing the look in their eyes I hugged my knees tighter.
Mama sent Zofia and Karol to the far side of the bed, as if the rusty metal frame could protect them, while Tata stood. When he put too much weight on his bad leg, he winced and pressed his palm against the wall to stabilize himself. It was all he could do without his cane. Silence filled the tiny space while the booted footsteps drew nearer, then our cell door creaked open and revealed two guards. One pointed at me, a gesture that made my heart plummet almost as much as the words that accompanied it.
“You, out.”
All along, I’d told myself that, when the guards came for me, I’d obey to keep them from manhandling me. But suddenly I couldn’t move.
Tata lunged. I wasn’t sure how he managed to stay on his feet, but he did until a guard struck him and knocked him to the floor.
Mama held me to her chest, between herself and the wall, shielding me. “Don’t touch her!” she shouted. Her shrieks reverberated in the small space and continued even when her head jerked back. Her arms tightened around me, but I glimpsed the guard holding her by the hair, and he wrenched us away from the wall and tugged me from her grasp.
I twisted and writhed—a gut instinct, though there was no point—while they hauled me out of the cell as if my struggles were a minor inconvenience, and then they slammed the door and clamped heavy cuffs around my wrists. My family’s screams faded as they took me away. An ominous thought crept into my mind, and I wondered if I’d ever come back.
Thuds and clinks echoed alongside each footstep as we traveled down the long, cold hallways. Even my own breathing was loud. The air smelled like metal, blood, sweat, and God knew what else. If suffering had a smell, it would have smelled like this place.
When one guard opened a door, the other pushed me over the threshold. I emerged into a world awash in piercing light and stumbled blindly until another shove brought darkness back. Blinking, I found myself in a van, sitting on a low wooden bench along one side. A large black canvas hood stretched over the space, blocking my view of the outside, and the sudden pitch of the vehicle as it started to move almost threw me from my seat. The prisoners packed around me prevented me from losing my balance as the van rumbled through the streets of Warsaw.
The drive didn’t take long. When a merciless grip pulled me out, I stood before Aleja Szucha 25—the Gestapo headquarters on Szucha Avenue.
I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to bear the sunshine or the massive building with billowing Nazi flags, harsh red against gray stone. One guard said something about Polish swine and marching, so I followed the Pawiak inmates through the courtyard, inside, and downstairs, descending into damnation. Each step down the narrow, dingy gray halls took me deeper into the bowels of Szucha until we reached an empty cell. A guard grabbed me, sniggering when I shied away, but he removed my handcuffs and told me to file toward “the tram”—I assumed he meant the row of single wooden seats, one behind the other, facing the back wall.
The iron door clanged shut. The tiny space reeked of blood and urine, the smells of terror, so pungent I stifled a gag, and the wooden floor was slick with both.
I was the youngest prisoner.
I sat on a small, hard seat behind a woman whose left arm was swollen, bruised, and hanging at her side. Broken, probably. I stared at the back of her head, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
From the corner of my eye—I didn’t dare turn my head—I noticed something etched into the black paint beside me. Maybe a name. Maybe a heroic message about freedom or independence. Maybe nail marks from a prisoner as he was dragged away for another interrogation, a prisoner terrified that he’d break this time.
Another sound pierced the shallow breaths around me. I lifted my eyes to a small open window, where I heard fervent voices from upstairs. An interrogator’s yelling, a prisoner’s petrified murmur, then cracks, screams, and sobs. Listening to torture was almost worse than the thought of experiencing it.
One by one, the guards summoned prisoners from the cell. In a vain attempt to stay calm, I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. In and out, slow and controlled. All it did was fill my nostrils with the tang of the blood and urine on the sticky floor and the stench of filthy, unwashed bodies. Every time another guard came to fetch a prisoner, my heart raced with renewed terror as I expected them to call my name.
But when I heard it, my racing heart came to an abrupt halt.
“Maria Florkowska.”
A rush of lightheadedness crashed over me. My body felt rooted to the tram, facing forward, always forward, and suddenly I would’ve given anything to stay seated for the rest of my life rather than go into an interrogation room. But I had to protect my family and the resistance. I sent up a quick prayer for strength and rose.
Upstairs, I sat at a rectangular table with my back to Hitler’s portrait. Two guards stood nearby while I assessed my surroundings. Stationed behind a desk in the corner, an impassive woman rested her fingers on a typewriter keyboard. Otherwise the room was sparse—except the far wall, lined with whips, rubber truncheons, and other instruments of torture.
Under the table, I clasped my hands together in an effort to stop them from shaking.
The door opened to announce my interrogator’s arrival. Sturmbannführer Ebner, the same man who had arrested us.
After the German invasion of 1939, when it had been safe to emerge from our apartment building’s basement, I’d seen a dead horse splayed outside. Birds had torn into its carcass, stripping flesh, muscle, and sinew from bone, staining the ground red, leaving the mangled form to rot. As Ebner sat across from me, I took in his features, from his premature baldness to his aquiline nose, and I couldn’t shake the image of those birds and that carcass.
“My name is Wolfgang Ebner.” His voice was light, as if we were old friends getting reacquainted. “Yours is Maria F
lorkowska, isn’t it?”
I hated the sound of my name coming out of his mouth, but I didn’t confirm or deny it. When the typewriter dinged, I jumped and hoped Ebner didn’t notice.
“Should I call you Helena Pilarczyk instead?”
The words held a faint trace of sarcasm, and a green identification card landed on the table. My false Kennkarte. He opened it to reveal the fabricated information and forged government stamps surrounding my photograph and signature. When I didn’t speak, Ebner moved the Kennkarte aside.
“As I recall, you speak excellent German, but I can bring in an interpreter if you’d prefer to resolve this matter in your native tongue.”
An interpreter would have lengthened the process, when all I wanted was for it to end. “I’ve been fluent my whole life,” I replied. Somehow I managed to keep my voice level.
Ebner nodded and produced a pack of cigarettes. He lit one and took a slow, pensive drag, then released the gray smoke. As it filled the space between us, he offered the pack to me. When I didn’t acknowledge it, he put it back in his pocket.
“All I need is the truth. If you cooperate, we’ll get along just fine.”
I almost heard Irena’s voice in my head—Dammit, Maria, how many times did I warn you about what those bastards will do to you? My fellow resistance member had filled my mind with tales of Gestapo brutality, and her vivid descriptions washed away Ebner’s false reassurance.
The typewriter let out another shrill ping while Ebner smoked and waited for me to say something. When my mouth stayed closed, his expression didn’t change, but a gleam of annoyance flickered in his eyes. He blinked and chased it away.
“I presume you are aware of the penalty for aiding Jews,” he said. And I was aware, of course, but was he really threatening such a minor member of the resistance with severe punishment, even death? He set a second document before me. “You delivered blank baptismal certificates for the Polish underground resistance?”
The proof was right in front of us, so there was no point in denying it. I nodded.
“How did you keep your work a secret from your family?”
The Last Checkmate Page 1